Customize “Single Click Select All” Feature in Mozilla Firefox Addressbar

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If you are a Mozilla Firefox user, you might have noticed that whenever you click in the addressbar, the whole text is selected by default. Its a good feature and very handy when you want to clear the addressbar to enter a new URL but sometimes you might want to disable it. Why? because if you want to edit a URL in the addressbar, you'll need to double-click to edit it.

So it depends upon what are your requirements. This tutorial will help you in disabling this feature and after following this tutorial, you can edit the URL by simply clicking in the addressbar, it'll not select the whole text any more.

So here are the steps:

1. Open firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll confirm, click on I’ll be careful, I promise! button.

2. Now type SelectsAll in the Filter box. It’ll show 2 entries:

browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll
browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll

"clickSelectsAll" would be set to true and "doubleClickSelectsAll" would be set to false.

3. Now to disable the auto-select feature, either double-click on "clickSelectsAll" or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to false.

You can set Firefox to select the whole text in the addressbar by double-clicking in it. To do so, either double-click on "doubleClickSelectsAll" or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to true.

4. That's it. Now Firefox will no longer select the whole text when you click in the addressbar but if you double-click, it'll select the whole text for you.

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This article was posted by VG in following section: Mozilla Firefox.

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Omi Azad

I like the single click select all feature. That is not available on Linux version of Firefox. So I'll try this on linux to enable single click for selecting all text in addressbar. :)
CS

WOW, thanks for the tip, that feature has always been getting in my way and I thought it was hardcoded into FF but obviously I wasn't looking hard enough :D

Thanks for yet another great article.
Osku Kaskisola

Hack ? Isnt it "change"
Nikolaj

good on youtube when you write &fml=28 in the url end to watch in HD
FaRReR

@Osku - Hacking is something that you obviously don't know about. We are hackers. You need to understand that hacking is not breaking into software and inserting viruses. Hacking is modifying files and software for one's own uses which don't harm other people.
Osku Kaskisola

Okay, got it now.
FaRReR

Great :D
I was a bit harsh there actually, sorry.
Eclipse

<3
joe

great post...i was actually looking for a way in ubuntu firefox to change this back to the default "select all" on one click per the usual on windows firefox, especially for the searchbar...i didn't know you could change like this thru about:config...thanks...
danny

Even though it should be a simple operation for people who have opened about:config before, I keep on forgetting how it's done. Great tutorial.. Neat and to the point.
Cheers.